


Life's Great Curve Balls

by jagwriter78



Series: VM Fic Club Promptober 2020 [4]
Category: Veronica Mars (Movie 2014), Veronica Mars (TV), Veronica Mars - All Media Types
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/M, Family Fluff, Fluff, Promptober, Promptober 2020, VM Fic Club Presents Promptober 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:07:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27226300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jagwriter78/pseuds/jagwriter78
Summary: A B C D E F Gwhat's your favorite word, sweat pea?
Relationships: Logan Echolls/Veronica Mars
Series: VM Fic Club Promptober 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1946935
Comments: 16
Kudos: 33
Collections: VM Fic Club Presents Promptober 2020





	Life's Great Curve Balls

**Author's Note:**

> October 27th prompt: **Curve Ball**  
>  1\. something which is unexpected, surprising, or disruptive.  
> 2\. (in sports and games) a pitch thrown with a strong downward spin, causing the ball to drop suddenly and veer to the side as it approaches home plate.

Sitting on the floor and surrounded by a huge number of building blocks of different colors and sizes, Logan looked over at the little blonde girl standing across from him. She was intently studying the blocks in her hands, before switching her gaze to the small tower of blocks in front of her. A tiny hand reached up, trying to place a blue block on top, but her aim was off, and as she let go of the block, it dropped onto one edge of the tower. The stack swayed slightly at first, but steadied itself a moment later, standing at an awkwardly crooked angle. It was just a matter of time before the unstable construction would come crashing down. Ava picked up another block, but instead of putting it on the tower, she reached out to one side and threw the wooden cube against its stacked siblings. Not a second later, the blocks came crashing down into a large jumbled mess. 

“Curve ball!” Logan laughed and held up his fists in victory.

"Baboom!" the toddler exclaimed and threw her arms up in the air as well, mimicking her father’s pose. 

“Team Ava for the win!”

The little girl just giggled joyfully, bouncing up and down in glee, before toddling around the mess she’d created and plopping herself down in Logan’s lap. She cuddled close to his chest, and a chubby little arm pointed at all the building blocks scattered across the floor. 

“Daddeee, mess!” 

“Yes, you made a mess indeed,” Logan chuckled, kissed the top of her blonde hair and pulled the plastic bin in front of them, then pointed at the mess on the floor.

"Time to tidy up, Ava."

The toddler rose to her feet, picked up a block, and handed it to him.

"Good job! Thank you," he smiled at her, and was rewarded with a wide, toothy grin as Ava awkwardly bent down and picked up more blocks further away, eagerly handing them over to her father.

Each time she handed him a block, he praised her with a  _ thank you _ , hoping that his little girl would eventually pick up on the concept of  _ please  _ and  _ thank you _ and figure out the importance of politeness on her own without teaching her a bookload of predefined intellectual lectures that - according to the playground tittle-tattle he was subjected to now and then - were the quintessential of raising a child. He'd picked up one of those books that he'd seen parents' noses disappear behind while their charming angels were throwing temper tantrums on the playground, read through the first couple of chapters, and then dumped the book in the trash. Highly praised psychologist or not, a fifty-seven-year-old unmarried guy without any kids didn't seem to be the most trustworthy source to him when it came to raising kids, especially if said expert claimed that even while still in their mother’s womb, babies needed to be stimulated with the philosophical concepts by Plato, Aristotle and Kant. Instead, Logan thought it more prudent to teach his toddler daughter things like “drinking out of Pony's water bowl is a very big no-no.”

"Daddeee, gimme!" Ava demanded, dumped the blocks she held in her hands into the bin and pulled at the plastic container.

"Tidy up, peanut," he repeated, and again, was answered with baby giggles from his daughter who just plopped down on her diaper-clad butt right where she stood.

"Daddeee 'idy up!"

"No, Ava tidy up."

"Daddeee 'idy up!"

"Ava tidy up. See, it's easy."

He picked up a tiny red cube that lay discarded next to his thigh and dropped it into the container with a loud  _ clunk. _

"Fuck you!" 

Logan just blinked, trying to bite back the urge to burst out laughing while at the same time, not giving any attention to what she'd just said. They always tried to control their language around her and not drop any inappropriate words, and while he was sure he'd never dropped the f-word in front of his daughter, the thought of that word slipping out of Veronica's mouth by accident was rather amusing. He didn't know any other way Ava could have possibly picked it up.

He studied the toddler carefully, trying to figure out how to go about her not so appropriate language, when Ava inadvertently gave him an out by picking up another block to drop into the box. 

"Thank you!" he smiled at her warmly, hoping that if he just ignored her dropping the f-word and praised her for actually cleaning up after herself, the appeal of the curse word would vanish. So he just went on with the task on hand, picked up two more blocks near him and threw them into the box.

"Fuck you!"

Ava clapped her hands and giggled enthusiastically. And suddenly, it started to dawn on him. He grabbed a few more blocks and deposited them in the bin.

"Fuck you, daddeee!"

He rolled his eyes upwards, and couldn’t contain the chuckle any longer. 

"Thank you, Ava!" he snorted.

"Fuck you, daddeee!" she echoed him, obviously very proud of herself. 

"Thank you."

"Fuck you."

"And the award for the most embarrassing mispronunciation of a word goes to Ava Echolls," he muttered under his breath and dropped the last of the building blocks into the crate.

"All finished, tha-" he stopped himself mid-sentence, hoping he wouldn't get to hear the f-word again, but give it to his daughter to finally pick up on the importance of  _ please  _ and  _ thank you _ at that very moment.

"Fuck you, daddeee."

She toddled over to where he was sitting on the floor, placed her chubby hands against his cheeks and pressed a sloppy kiss on the tip of his nose.

“Your mother is going to be so proud of you, peanut.”

~~~~~~~~~~~

Veronica placed a plate with apple slices and cut up bits of grilled cheese in front of her daughter, who sat patiently in her kiddie chair at the kitchen island.

"Waggles," Ava pouted immediately at the sight of the sliced toast, and pushed her plate away from her.

"No, we're not having waffles today,” Veronica pushed the plate back in front of her daughter. “Mommy made you yummy grilled cheese and apple slices."

"Babies?" the toddler tried again, looking up at her mother with expectant eyes. 

"Grilled cheese and apples, Ava."

“Babies!”

Tiny fists hit the table in a desperate attempt to undermine her demand for food much more to her liking. 

“Ava!” Veronica admonished her. The little girl immediately stopped her tantrum, and looked up at her wide-eyed. “No berries and no waffles today. You can share a yoghurt with daddy after you've eaten that, okay?”

“Fuck you, mama!” came the instant reply, and little hands eagerly grabbed hold of one the apple slices on the plate, stuffing it into her mouth.

Veronica just stared at her daughter for a moment, then rolled her eyes upwards and inhaled sharply. 

“Not even two and she already figured out the f-word,” she muttered, visibly irritated by Ava’s choice of words.

“I know you had very high expectations for our kid,” Logan chuckled as he came up behind her, “but we gotta be realistic. She’s half Echolls, half Mars. She's doomed to be potty-mouthed.” 

“I’m so glad you find that amusing.”

She patted his chest as she walked past him towards the counter and reached up on the shelf to grab two glasses. 

"Even with a mouth like that, she'll make friends in no time. It’s the Echolls charm."

"That potty-mouth is definitely all Echolls charm," she scoffed and handed him the glasses. 

“Relax, she’ll stop saying that eventually.”

“And what exactly makes you think that?  _ You  _ haven’t stopped using the word.”

Logan reached for the carafe with orange juice that stood on the island and started to pour each of them a glass.

“I do get to use the word, in private, in certain situations,” he mused, that certain tinge of snarkiness in his voice, “when it’s just between you and me. And now and then, I even hear that same word coming out of your mouth, especially when we do that-”

“Stop,” Veronica raised a hand in his direction, “kid around.” 

He just shrugged at her, a wicked grin spread wide on his face, as he handed her a glass of OJ. "Listen and learn."

Turning back towards the kitchen island, he bent down and placed his arms on the counter, now almost on eye level with his daughter. She flashed him a sweet smile while she chewed on a piece of grilled cheese.

“Mommy's made a really yummy lunch for Ava, hasn't she?” he asked her.

“Yummy yummy yummy yummy," Ava cackled, nodding enthusiastically.

“And what do we say when someone has done something good?”

“Fuck you!” she exclaimed joyfully as she looked over at her mother, then back to her father.

Logan blew her a kiss, then straightened and snickered, "Point proven."

“That's absolutely cringe-worthy,” Veronica grumbled and took a sip of her orange juice. 

“I’ll just remind you of the time when we babysat Noah and he said  _ die, die _ to the elderly lady at the coffee shop.  _ That  _ was pretty disconcerting.”

“At least he wasn't cursing.”

“Given the look on that woman’s face that very moment, she probably begs to differ.”

With a loud  _ thud _ , Ava’s empty sippy cup hit the counter top while she tried pushing it over towards her parents. 

“Oopsie.”

Wide-eyed, she stared up at them, then her chubby little hands grabbed the cup and stood it back in an upright position.

“Peace.”

“Now that one’s at least funny,” Veronica muttered, “I'll never live down the f-word if my dad hears her say that."

"Daddeee, peeeeace!" 

Ava bobbed up and down in her chair, growing rather impatient when neither of her parents were giving her the attention she craved. 

"At least she's polite and saying her please and thank you’s. It's the thought that counts." Logan finally turned his attention to the toddler and picked up the sippy cup from the table. "What do you want, sweetie pie? Water or milk?”

Ava pointed at the juice carafe sitting on the other end of the island, “Owie douche.”

“And we won’t be taking the kid anywhere ever again until she’s talking properly.”


End file.
